It is obvious that IT is drastically affecting the world we live in. This has been said a thousand times this semester. But just as another example, there are many things that have been created and implemented into retail that make a huge difference in employment. I work in retail so I see these types of technologies first hand.
This a device called a Portable Data Terminal (PDT). It is basically a mobile computer with a built-in scanner. I've seen different styles at other retail stores. Parcel service companies utilize these to greater develop package tracking. It has the ability to tell us anything about any store's inventory. For example, a customer wants a shirt but we don't have his size; we can simply get out a PDT and scan the item and it will show what store around has his size. Also, if we are currently out of stock on an item, we can tell if there is more in transit. This device can receive shipments, transfer product, order more products, make signs/labels, and perform price changes (just to name a few). The PDT saves us a lot of time, and helps us help our customers.
Technological advances are important in many aspects of the economy. A major concern is the jobs and employment opportunities it takes away from the public. A well-known advantage of how information technology reacts with the public is how it helps business better tailor to the customers. Information technology advances in businesses efficiently and effectively help decrease cost and improve managements power to regulate its business. For example, retail stores have used what is known as mobile point-of-sales (POS) technologies to help with the well known deficiencies of POS, or checkout, offices.
Point-of-sales offices are better known as the cash registers and cashiers which customers wait in line for to finish a transaction and pay for a good. This original idea is obviously wide spread in brick-and-mortar business. As these businesses try to keep up and compete with newer online businesses, they don't only try to move more products via internet, they are trying to use technology to help inside their physical store. It is possible to have even more than 10 customers in a line at a time and this can cause on out of ten of them to just leave. This can result in a decrease of sales. Also, even if a customer may not actually just leave the store, the experience of a long line might result in less of a desire to revisit the store, decreasing demand.
Mobile POS can be used to help improve in this area of a business. Mobile POS can help by having sales reps and mobile cashiers around the stores with POS machines (like the one in the picture shown above) and have customers checkout while in store, without having to reach the front of the store cashiers. It will print out a receipt, just as a regular register transaction. Also, these mobile POS cashiers can walk along the long lines at the register and help condense lines by checking out the customers on the spot, before even getting to the register. Information technology is helping the enterprise market by using wireless LAN technology to help businesses avoid problems dealing with customer satisfaction.
Farmers might be some of the most old fashioned people around. Tricks of the trade are passed down from generation to generation with no real variation from the norm. To stay competitive and try to optimize every harvest (and monitor livestock) the farmers of today are looking to technology for a competitive advantage. Precision agriculture has completely revolutionized how the farmers of today run their farms. Precision agriculture uses predictive analytics to allow farmers to see real time data pertaining to soil and air quality, weather conditions and even real time imaging of crops and livestock
What are the benefits? Well first and foremost it provides farmers with data on when and where to plant their crops to ensure an optimal harvest. It also allow farmers the ability to monitor livestock to avoid lost or stolen animals. The farms of the future are going to steer away from the tried and true turn to the shiny and new to stay afloat in todays economy. What do you think will be the effects of these technological advances? What other advances do you think could advance the agricultural industry?
So I was reading about this relatively still "new" technology:
3-D Printing. It’s been around for around 30 years now, not perfected but
its steadily transforming into something quite interesting. Around the
early 1980s Charles W. Hull, the man claimed to be the first to discover the idea,
began with the Stereolithography (SLA) technique.
The First 3-D Printer
The basic definition: a
technique or process for creating three-dimensional objects, in which a
computer-controlled moving laser beam is used to build up the required
structure, layer by layer, from a liquid polymer that hardens on contact with
laser light. Basically you can create a 3 dimensional prototype of almost
any object that you can design through Computer Aided Design (CAD).
Since then, there have
been hundreds of open source 3-D printers created. Some of the materials
used in these printers are common like plastic or metal. This type of
manufacturing is called "additive manufacturing" because instead of
using regular industrial machines that drill, cut and shape, thus wasting
material, it adds material layer by layer.
Although these printers
are not quite optimal for creating hefty or even stable objects such as car
parts or household items like a coffee machine they are able to create parts of objects, toys, or even simple things like cups and plates.
There are concerns that 3-D printing will open up many
possibilities, even unsafe ones.
I have included a documentary video about 3-D printing gun part. It is interesting that only 30 years ago this was being created. I am sure its not at its optimal state right now but as fast as technology is advancing, I will not be surprised if in a few years this will be even more mainstream.How will this effect the manufacturing industry or even companies in general? How and where do you see these printers being used for in 5 or 10 years? Do you think maybe one day they'll be used for heavy manufacturing? What about safety?
Many Americans have iPhones or some form of mobile device that they use
on a daily basis.On those devices there
are an arrangement of apps that are used for several different purposes such as
games, weather, news, email, social media, banking, etc.However, there is one purpose that is
increasingly becoming more available and that is medical apps.
One application that has caught the media's and other people's
attention is an app called uChek. uChek was created in India and released this
past April or May 2013.The purpose of
this app is for an individual to be able to perform a self-check on their own
urine sample.Along with the app the
purchaser will receive a kit via the mail that contains the strips needed for
the urine analysis.Based on the reading
of the urine, this app will be able to let an individual know whether they are
at risk of any of the 25 different health problems listed in the link below.
As mentioned previously, this app was released by an India based
company earlier this year.About one
month after the app had been launched and started making sales, the FDA sent a
letter to the CEO of Biosense in India.In order for the app to be sold in the U.S. it must be approved by the
FDA.According to the creators of the uChek app, they had filed for a class 1 device.Unfortunately, the FDA claims that this isn't the case. As a result, uChek is currently not offered for
sale in the United States.I feel like
if the U.S. market could come up with some apps similar to this then it would
be a great thing for the economy.I
would much rather be able to do things on my own rather than visit the doctor
and have to take a day off of work.Would
you like to see a medical app this advanced enter into the U.S. market?Why or why not?
Information Technology has made several things in the workplace easier, more convenient for both consumers and employers. As Jonathan said in his blog, employees are being replaced by automated services resulting in less cost overall for employers.
The older approaches which consisted of manually processing requests or transactions from customers at the time expense of the employee. Now, this is being replaced by automated systems that can process these requests on-demand to allow for faster, smoother transactions. Also, on the customer service end, businesses' customer service availability was dependent on the amount of representatives that were available to respond to customers' request. This meant that businesses' customer service could only be open during the main business hours (i.e. 9 A.M.-5 P.M.), unless the employers wanted to pay more to have night shift representatives. Now, requests may be processed on a company's website and could be responded to during the next business day. Thus, customer support is more convenient and allows every request to be answered.
Another big change is that more work can be done in various places; such as on job-sites or at home. That said, more work can be done and job-site visits can be more productive. Overall speeding up procedures and lowering costs.
I work in retail, and IT has made a vast improvement in day-to-day work, especially involving relationships with customers. Web links that give our customers an opportunity to give feedback on the overall service they received is a great example. We can take their feedback and apply it to future situations.
The implications of IT in the workplace and the economy are obvious. Everyone knows it is a necessary evil. Although it does make the need of human labor decrease, it is still necessary to improve an organization's or team's operations. A quick example would be the way we are able to communicate and share our information and ideas of information technology without needing to be in the same place as one another at the same time, which works in everyone's favor. A larger example that caught my attention was the affect IT has on the Healthcare Industry. The Massachusetts Institution of Technology posted an article focusing on using electronic records in patient procedures.
It is historically proven that the US has a very poor track record dealing in the health care industry. Compared to the rest of the nation, the United States has "above average rates of medical errors and of infant mortality and below average life expectancies". At the very same time, we still have a large population of uninsured individuals and many people are trying to move toward electronic health records. These systems include reminders for specific patients and also guidance when treating patients. It can help with less costly online interactions between patients and clinics instead of the more costly face-to-face version. Also, physicians can communicate with order providers through an electronic system to make sure patients follow through with needed procedures like lab tests for example.
Information Technology in the workplace of healthcare professionals, specifically the Electronic Health Records, can be a great improvement. Adam Seth Litwin of MIT mentioned in his article that information technology could reduce medical errors, help improve the treatment of diseases (i.e. beta blockers), and early detection of diseases such as Type 2 diabetes. Also, the implementation of IT in healthcare helps physicians learn the best practices for medical conditions and also reach out to patients that would need these treatments. IT may hinder jobs but can be a great help in most industries, as was described for the industry of healthcare.
